Some of Barack Obama's detractors have been scrutinizing his record of accomplishments in the United States Senate. Who better to ask than his good friend and supporter Ted Kennedy?
I caught up with Kennedy today after a rally in San Marcos, Texas, and asked him about Obama's experience. Here's what he had to say:
BRODY: The Clinton campaign has made a lot about the lack of legislative achievement by Sen. Obama. What do you make of that and can you give us a sense of some of those legislative achievements he has indeed supported?
KENNEDY: Well, first of all, Barack Obama brings a real extraordinary experience to this job I think in two particular areas: one in the Senate itself. He's been there a limited period of time, but excellent ideas and suggestions, which we have incorporated in our education program to bring qualified teachers in underserved areas, which is an Obama program which he developed in Illinois and that we replicated in Massachusetts. He was the floor leader on the ethics reform and took on all of those who were trying to undermine that. He debated it and he was very, very effective on it.
I can tell the people that are interested in immigration reform we saw in the floor of the United States Senate he was one of a small group of Senators -- it was myself, Sen. Salazar, Sen. Menendez, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin were the team that really led the Senate when we had our immigration debate. He was there early in the morning, he understood all of the debates, he was an effective debater, and he worked with us throughout the evening to try and find new strategies, so he has that kind of innate kind of experience.
Finally… American historians were asked about what kind of experience is really important for the Presidency and they placed experience and good judgment as being very important. I think Barack has got good judgment. He certainly did opposing going into the war in Iraq.
And secondly, is he able to inspire people. I think we've seen that all across the country. Is he able to bring good people into running things. I think most people would give him excellent marks in terms of running a campaign. He's been able to get good people running and does he have a loyalty to people that know him and worked with him. And will he be able to ask (people to) sacrifice in the American people. I think he's prepared to do it, so you have a person like Dick Cheney who's been around government forever and has been an absolute disaster, so the issue is what is the good experience? And Barack has it.